James Fischer.



>If Jerry kept at it for more than a week, heproved it worked under a wide

range of abusive conditions.<  FYI, we did this from 1995 through 2012, so it was more than a week.
As James knows from working for the Navy and my own experience working forArmy, Navy, and EPA Superfund, there are built-in peer reviews that raise thebar far above that of journal reviewers.  And the program officer has theoption of issuing a Stop Work Order and rescinding a project at any time.

 Federal agency projects of this type typicallyare research contracts rather than grants.  The contract's fine-printrequires quarterly, often monthly technical reports, an annual report, a yearlypanel peer review, and an annual site visit.  Much, if not all, of theresearch must be done under strict Good Laboratory Practices (GLP)protocols.  Virtually all of the work and records are subject tounannounced or short-term notification visits by program officers and GLPauditors.  Documents have to be kept in locked, Fire Proof Safes. All data, notes, etc., have to be written in ink, recorded in bond,page-numbered, logbooks, with every page and every change initialed and dated.

 Furthermore, the contractsusually stipulate that information to be published or shared in any formmust be pre-approved, generally with a minimum of 45 days' notice beforepresentation to a meeting or submission for publication.  Approval usually involves the fundingagency's program, contract, and security officers. With Superfund, we often hadlawyers involved.

 Project technical reports are available on aneed-to-know basis, but the agency must be convinced of thatneed-to-know.  In recent years, my Department of Energy and DoD contractsoften carried a statement to the effect that failure to adhere to theserestrictive information distribution requirements could lead to fines of $1M ormore.

 Why the secrecy?  Our DoD work was in therealm of troop protection and national security.  The concern was that ifreleased, our country's enemies might use that information to thwart oursurveillance and protection systems or alter them from defense to offensivepurposes.  Our Energy-Related research offered improved energy-relatedsoftware, materials, storage of harmful materials.  While not as sensitiveas our military research, the concern was that countries like China and Russiawould love to get their hands on any significant energy-related breakthroughtechnologies. Still, we were able to publish more of our DOE research than ourDoD research.

 While working for the Army at Ft Detrick, we puta hazardous chemical, area-wide surveillance system on a DoD site near a majorUS city. Our sentinel network was more intensive and more extensive thanthat of the U.N. nuclear monitoring in Iraq.  Our sentinel methodsand program were reviewed by  Ft Detrick scientists and the AmericanInstitute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) under their bespoke, peer-reviewprogram.  

 As per our conditioned bee research, that workwas audited by a statistical and signal processing team lead by Dr. RichardAlbenese, Brooks Air Base https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-albanese-623a3356.  His team processed 36 weeks of beetarget detection video behind locked and closed doors, usingtwo Interlocutors to review every video frame.  It took twoyears before they provided their report to DARPA and their endorsement of ourbee-based methodology; they were the ones that pressed for the use of ROCs(which addresses accuracy and reproducibility).  The ROC figure that Ireferenced in the Rand Institute report came from Richard.  As a side note,when first brought in to audit our work, Richard announced that he thought thatthis was all a fraud.  Two years later, he apologized and became anadvocate.

 And if you think I am making up the nationalsecurity issues, we spent nearly a year setting up a landmine locationdemonstration at a NATO test site at Medicine Hat in Canada, only to have theU.S. State Department shut it down for reasons of national security.

 Now, let us address the claim that my teams andI do not publish.  Start by reading our Biosensors Review,2015  - it is peer-reviewed and publicly available https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6374/5/4/678.

 Then, read the Rand Institute Appendix S- https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6374/5/4/678   That Appendix was reviewed andencouraged by DARPA for publication.  It was prepared, reviewed, andpublished by the Rand Science and Technology Institute, and Prepared for theU.S. Office of Science and Technology. During that period, our researchmonthly research reports were forwarded to a Science Panel in the WhiteHouse, and The United Nations Demining Program officers came out for sitevisits.

 Our methods and capabilities were reviewed at sitedemonstrations that included generals and U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff members.   The Joint Chiefs of Staff is the bodyof the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department ofDefense, who advises the United States president, the secretary of defense, theHomeland Security Council, and the National Security Council on militarymatters.  Over the years, we provided proof-of-conceptdemonstrations at the Ft Leonard Wood test landmine site, Yuma Proving Grounds,Sandia Laboratories, and SWRI in San Antonio.

 Still not convinced, read our peer-reviewed 1985Science article Pollution Monitoringof Puget Sound with Honey Bees https://science.sciencemag.org/content/227/4687/632  That work was reviewed by theNational Research Council and included in a Monograph on Sentinel Animals,published by the U.S. National Academy Press.  The technologies applied tothe Puget Sound work are also included in a US EPA Manual of EPA Approved andRecommended Protocols for Assessments of Hazardous Waste Sites (1989).

 Do I often publish - no.  Do I publish asummary article when I can get all of the approvals in place - yes.  My teams have 92 readily available, published articles, seven bookchapters in peer-reviewed monographs, and four patents.  I also have andcontinue to serve on federal agency review panels, including USDA, DoD, andNSF.  Although a Research Professor, my Division of BiologicalSciences conducted annual performance, public service, and publication reviewsof all of its faculty.

 Stating that my/our work is anecdotal, notpublished, and not peer-reviewed is incorrect.  However, due to a careerbased on contract research, much of it classed as sensitive data.  I often haveto settle for summary publications that illustrate our work and showproof-of-concept.  As to my supposed ignorance of bee behavior, myPh.D. is in insect ethology, with a minor in Biochemistry and significant populationand community ecology expertise.

 Regarding James's comment about the Navy and Armyand lasting more than a week, we found that the Office of Naval Research andthe Army's Ft Belvoir Night-Vision-and-Electronic-Sensors-Directorate weredemanding.  The Fort Detrick US Army Center for Environmental HealthResearch, as much or more so, although they were more open topublication.  Working for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency) made the others seem like walking in the park. Fortunately, with itsstrict GLP requirements, EPA Superfund research prepared us for our work forthe Department of Energy, especially for the military.

 Jerry

 P.S.

 Our 2015 peer-reviewed, Plos One paper stands atan incredible 100,284 161 viewings.  

 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html